For every Tristan Thompson and Cory Joseph success story, unfortunately, there are many more sad tales about Canadians with bold hoop dreams.

While Thompson and Joseph (both drafted in the first round of the NBA draft this past summer) and up-and-coming NCAA performers get all the headlines, much of the nonsense, shady business and broken dreams that can go on behind the scenes has been ignored.

CBC’s the Fifth Estate will run an episode on the subject, titled Fast Break on Friday at 9 p.m. tackling the subject of young Canadians and their families making big sacrifices in search of stardom.

The preview alleges it will “reveal the mysterious machinery that feeds pro-basketball’s star-making system,” including high schools where parents sometimes pay big money, but their children seldom, or never go to class.

Few – if any — people want to go on the record about the darker side and not all “basketball factories” or members of the amateur basketball community can be painted with a negative brush, but many certainly can be.

At the least, with so much attention given to hockey in this country, it will be nice to see the focus turned to basketball for once — even if it might not paint the sport in the greatest light.